


How'd You Know?

by inkyandness



Category: Hot Guy P.I. (Webcomic)
Genre: Coffee, I am characterizing Daniella on scraps here, Love, M/M, Nando POV, Oblivious Nando, Pining Schmidt, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:48:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28291905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkyandness/pseuds/inkyandness
Summary: “So, how’d you know?”“Hmm? Know what?”“How’d you know she was the one?”(In which Schmidt has a crush. Or at least, he thinks he might. He really doesn't know.)
Relationships: Schmidt/Nando Sy
Comments: 1
Kudos: 26





	How'd You Know?

The city always looked nice when it was lit up like this, or, at least Nando thought so.

It was at times like these that the city looked simultaneously the most and least like itself. With the snow coming down the way it did, most people were inside by now, which left the city so…empty in a way that didn’t feel lonely. But the way the snow itself seemed to glow as it floated down from the sky like stardust made Nando almost feel bad for all the people who’d miss it.

True, he would hate the snow once the sun was in the sky again and he had to drive through the icy gray slush and deal with the bitter cold that seemed determined to wrack its way through his body and make him nostalgic for a far more existentially depressing winter far before his time…

But for now? It was an almost euphoric kind of beauty that had captured him. The way the moonlight washed over the setting… He felt like he was nothing more than dust and ash before this time, and seeing all of this made him feel alight with a flame once more.

_I dunno. Poetry was more Daniella’s thing. Or at least I think it was, I think she just liked making jokey blackout poetry more than anything else._

He wondered if Schmidt seemed to understand how excited he was about all of this, but given the way that he seemed to be paying more attention to lighting a cigarette than the world around him, he supposed not. Maybe this kind of thing was a little too ephemeral for his tastes, or maybe Nando took a photography class for 3 years in high school and every now and then he thought about picking it back up as a hobby, or something of the sort, and was always looking for the next thing that would really bring him back in.

However, even as he thought about such nonsense things as “rule of thirds” or “composition” he couldn’t help but watch Schmidt try to light a cigarette while the snow poured down on him and the wind continued to blow its gusts. It would be almost comical to watch if Nando didn’t know that Schmidt only smoked in scenarios of extreme stress, only picking it up in the first place for the “aesthetic appeal of it all.”

Of course, that was a stupid reason, but all Nando asked was that he didn’t smoke in their shared office, or in front of Nadia and Schmidt had agreed. Nobody was ever looking for a lecture, and Nando didn’t really feel as if he had the authority to give one, so he didn’t.

Of course, at this point, he should probably ask “what’s wrong,” because that’s what you DID when your friend was engaging in relatively unhealthy coping mechanisms that both of you were capable of recognizing for what they were, but Schmidt could be…difficult. About being open about certain things.

And of course, if he began to demand emotional honesty from Schmidt, he could just as easily turn that double-bladed sword back on him and ask the same, and the idea of creating a self-perpetuating wound that could never really heal in the both of them was just…a lot. To process, to handle, whatever turn of phrase fit best.

So, he didn’t demand it. Anything Schmidt told him was of his own volition, not something Nando forced out of him, and in that respect, anything Nando said was of his. They didn’t ask about things like that. Or at least, he didn’t, and Schmidt seemed to understand this, maybe even respect these conversational conventions he had established.

Which is why Schmidt said,

“So, how’d you know?”

As an invitation to Nando to inquire more.

“Hmm? Know what?”

Schmidt had finally gotten his cigarette lit, and breathed out a cloud in something more of a sigh than anything else.

“How’d you know she was the one?”

“…Uh, I don’t know how to put this, but I don’t think she-“

“No, I know you’re not together anymore.” Schmidt said dismissively. “But you must’ve loved her at some point. You got married. You have a daughter. You’re even on good terms to this day, not a lot of people can say that.”

“What are you getting at?”

“How’d you know she was the one? At the time, I mean?” Schmidt seemed to turn his head away from Nando’s, though his cigarette conveyed some level of dramatic expression as he held it in his hands and waved it around as he talked. “How’d you know you wanted to get married?”

“Why? You got your eye on somebody? Somebody I know?” Nando asked smugly and watched as Schmidt nearly crushed the still-lit cigarette in his hand and began to walk away.

“I don’t know why I ask you anything,” he muttered.

“Hey hey hey! Hold on,” Nando began, pulling on the sleeve of Schmidt’s jacket, which got him to turn back with a wide-eyed gaze. “I’m sorry, I was just kidding. I didn’t realize this was a sore subject for you.”

“Not sore,” Schmidt bristled. “Just…a fresh wound, is all.”

Nando hummed in understanding and let go of his sleeve, joining him by his side instead of trailing behind him. “Nadia’s away tonight at her mo-Daniella’s anyhow. You wanna grab some hot chocolate? We can talk more some place warm.”

———

Nando couldn’t deny that Schmidt had a knack for finding some of the best cafes in the city. Even if they had to walk an extra 5 minutes to find it, all of that seemed worth it when they found a cafe that was something more like a secret library in a fantasy novel than a coffee shop, with big quilts and a roaring fireplace and towers upon towers of books, not to mention the hot chocolate that seemed to be 50% marshmallow soup that didn’t taste as bad as the idea of “marshmallow soup” sounded.

He supposed if this was really a secret library in a fantasy novel, there might be less board games up for grabs, and maybe a few less people than the three teenager girls who seemed to be having a very aggressive game of checkers, but hey, you couldn’t have it all.

“The lady who runs the place hired me to manage their social media a couple of days ago, and I figured that I’d have to run by the place once or twice to really figure out its brand identity.” Schmidt shrugged, giving Nando an answer to a question he wasn’t asking, but didn’t mind knowing nonetheless.

“That sounds cool. I feel like the place loses something if it isn’t sort of secluded like this, you know?”

Schmidt shrugged at that, because he didn’t really know what he was supposed to say to that. It was a statement that went against his goal for the place, but there was something undeniably charming about such a quiet, idyllic setting that to be the one responsible for the destruction of it, even for the sake of its survival, felt like…a different kind of bad.

“Maybe you should take that person you like here for a date or something,” Nando said off-handedly, scratching at his head, totally oblivious.

 _“I never said I liked anyone,”_ Schmidt hissed, though there seemed to be some color rising to his face.

“So, what? You want to know the intimate details of my marriage for kicks?”

“You _SEEMED_ to be fine with talking about it back at the office, you have to be more open when I hit a ner-“

“Schmidt, I was kidding.” Nando said, placing his hands on Schmidt’s shoulders to pull him out of whatever defensive spiral THAT was, and he seemed to relax a little. Tone indicators seemed to be helping him as of late. “I’m okay with talking about it with you. It’s not really that big a deal.”

Nando removed his hand from Schmidt’s shoulders, careful not to knock over his mug. “It isn’t?” Schmidt asked, seeming a little confused.

“I mean,” Nando shrugged, “it’s you, first of all, and second, it just really _isn’t_ a big deal. It would be kind of weird at this point to hang out as just as casual friends, but it’s not like we HATE each other or anything and movie nights aren’t off the table or anything.” Nando took a sip of his drink.

“You still haven’t told me WHY you decided to get together in the first place.”

Nando hesitated. “I…don’t quite remember.”

“Brilliant.”

“No, I mean, I guess we were…kinda just stuck like glue from the beginning? Like, we met because we were both on stage-crew for this weird school art festival, and I fell in a recycling bin when I was trying to compact the stuff so the thing wouldn’t be pouring all over the floor, and while she was trying to help me out she fell in, and we just had to try not to laugh as this kid was playing the bongos and reading the Communist Manifesto and I swear to GOD it was just so hilarious at the time and after that whole mess, we just…became friends, and we just kept messing around together.”

Schmidt sipped his own drink and nodded, urging him to continue.

“And, I don’t want to say that we were NEVER in love and our feelings weren’t real, because that’d be like discounting years of our lives and our feelings, but I do feel like that we were just such close friends that eventually it just got to the point that it…felt like we should’ve been dating. Like, conversations on the phone that last for hours, constantly hanging out and planning other hangouts, knowing each other better than we knew ourselves…her parents didn’t even learn my name for about 5 years, I was just “the boyfriend,” even before we were dating.”

Nando shrugged and sighed.

“I guess at some point we just realized we’d be better off as friends more than anything else, but it took us a hell of a long time to realize that.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know, really. I mean, Nadia was born pretty…early in our relationship, and at least one of our families was going to be judgey about it if it wasn’t the other, and we wanted her to have a stable family life growing up, and when it became clear that we wanted drastically different things, we split. Simple as that.”

“Simple as that.” Schmidt repeated. “Do you still like her?”

“Like her? What are we, 12?” Nando joked, but upon realizing it wasn’t falling on ears in the mood for jokes, he straightened himself out. “I dunno. As a friend, yeah, but anything more serious isn’t really on the table. I don’t know why, but for some reason my brain wouldn’t let me think about her like that even if I really wanted to, it’s like even at my most irrational I know she’s off-limits.”

Schmidt hummed in understanding.

“So, from what I’ve gathered,” he began. “You and your ex-wife got into a relationship because you two were just…that good of friends?”

“Well, when you say it like that, it sounds weird, but yeah.”

Schmidt sighed at that, and looked this strange combination of confused and defeated as he took another sip from his mug and looked Nando in the eyes and said,

“You have no idea how little help that really is.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah yeah yeah! Got a fic out at the very last minute as a Christmas present!! I thought that this would be fun, and I hope my character exploration was alright given how fast and loose I kind of had to play it. All I know is that Daniella eats Cheetos with chopsticks and that's just something I know in my heart, but wasn't very helpful for this story.
> 
> I do think Nando is trying to play off the relationship as better than it was, maybe out of pride or something, maybe just not remembering how things really went uhh, I dunno! It's so much fun just playing in the weeds of all this. The ambiguity of it all is very compelling and Karina has been very nice about this.
> 
> Thanks for so much joy this year Karina!! I've written at least 12K of Hot Guy PI this year, and even more if I count the unfinished stories in that bunch, and it's just been...nice, to do things like this! It's been really fun. Here's to another year?
> 
> Juliastartoons.tumblr.com  
> Kofi: https://ko-fi.com/juliastartoons


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